undeadfanstoriesfandomcom-20200214-history
Step by Step/Issue 32
This is Issue #32 of ''Step by Step''. This is the second issue of Volume Six. Awake Meanwhile, Nolan Brackenbury was busy minding his own beeswax. He was lost in his la la land, a smiling feller. He was in it, you bet, in those days as a young whippersnapper. He could make out the windy breeze worm-slithering through his hair. He was riding his dark white pickup, on his way to maybe Hell itself. Might as well have been, it was a burning hot September's day with no rain. It was going great. His Dodge pickup ran on twenty-five miles a gallon, recently had been gassed up at the last truckstop, and had left him with five dollars and three nickels. With that, he'd bought a baseball cap, topped his head with it, and went speeding down the highway. He was somewhere in Indiana, somewhere in no man's land. Nothing moved here–except for the truck. A minifan on the dashboard, too. Next to it, there was a cup of long ago-brewed coffee. Like it, inside the truck was a hot-as-hell place to be. He had honeycomb stuck between his teeth, which now worked like fine pink bubble gum. Nolan, fanning himself with one hand, had been wetting his Dickies coveralls aplenty. It was a heat wave, bright and clear and agonizing to every which pore. The highway was long and endless. Large stretches of brown grass laid low on both sides. The grass was sweltering, the road ahead a blurry, sweaty mirage. The next stop was a couple miles. That would have mattered, but he was going to put the brakes on the pickup soon. He needed a break from all the sun. "I'm headed for Evansville, or South Bend, hell even South Bend sounds nice," he rambled, surveying the afternoon landscape with mere satisfaction. Nolan pressed a lukewarm rag around the back of his neck. Damn, was it hot. "Chi-town sounds more like it. Any place that welcomes a stinking guy like me." He was wearing these knee high boots, muck boots the clerk'd said. They were covered in green gunk, an oozing slime from a bog he trudged through had crusted on one. The other was colored red, darker than the brown when he'd bought them. He took the wet rag, rubbed one boot for a while, and had given up after four tries. On him was his denim jacket, with both sleeves. There were about three, maybe five news clipping on the dashboard. He noticed them, each important in their own might, and opened the glove compartment. Inside there was another, grayish-yellow from age. He studied it for a while. LUNCHTIME HORROR, was the newspaper's name (followed by a fitting slogan: Time to Die!). Nolan remembered the news clipping, wondering whether he had it someplace on him. He'd checked later. Then there was the actual news article, the real thing under the heading. It had sent shivers, good shivering, down his spine. The pickup's engine groaned, kicked, and belched.'' Seemingly after a week of police lurking through smelly bogs'', the report said, remains of what officials dub "a piece of human flesh" has been found. The pulpy goo has been identified as a missing Tom Gallenger, 34. The local had been missing for quite sometime, and with no family in check there were hardly any leads for the police. He had a lotta dirty laundry. Yes sirre. Nolan chuckled, "Ashes to ashes." He studied it some more, grabbing it to give it a good lookover.'' Earlier today, around morningtime, the investigators on the case have concluded this a homicide, suspecting that the victim had been "murdered before his smoothie was paid", said Officer Wilkins on the scene.'' The news clipping went on and on, Tom Gallenger was under investigation for possession of mass quantities of narcotics. Some skeptics call Gallenger's death an accident, while one unknown source said, ''"a gator prob'ly ate him and shitted him back out".'' "A gator probably did," Nolan had told himself, when he closed the glove compartment. The sun was going down, and the noon was dying down. He would need some shut-eye, later, not now. He had a lot of stuff to do. First things first, he needed to purchase some cleaning solution. Get rid of all that dirt and grime, not on his boots, but on the bloody mess he had in the bed of his truck. That little two-by-four bed, covered in messy gore, was where Tom's bloody pulp once laid. Had himself a good dinner with Tom. "What do those snail-folk call it?" Nolan aah''ed. "A smoking dinner, side of ham and egg, with a beef souffle à la Nolan." Not much scared Nolan. He had heard it all; around campfires and in back alleys. "From the backwoods, too," he said, been there done that. A woodcutter's ax. That's what scared him. Right then–at summer camp, in that truck, outside King's. That was when he snapped back to reality. ''Ring-ading-ding-ding-dong. ---- "It scares the hell out of me," Nolan told the direction he faced, and Lyle heard him. You scare the hell outta me, Nolan wanted to tell him. "You scared the hell off ''me," Lyle said, painstakenly grabbing his chest. Smiled. He was looking where the sirens screeched from. His fingers loomed along his chest, rubbing and massaging the hurt. He had thrown on a dark-colored shirt, wrapped a bandage around his chest, and a blue-black beret. As they'd left the church, Lyle'd put on leather-padded shoes, courtesy of Dr. Scholl's. All taken from the church, but Nolan was sure the man had left an I.O.U. note. "Never been to a small town." ''Never been in a jail, either, Nolan supposed. "It's a small town, Jacky-boy. We're being taken to our last stop, off the road and out of sight. They'll want to snuff us out, put pillows over our faces while we sleep. Don't you see, don't you think?" "I'm awake to it. Wide awake." Lyle nodded to Derek. "Aren't I, ass-funk?" "Yes," Derek said. "He hears you well. He sees you well. He gets what you mean because he doesn't see no way around it. Jackson's accepted it. He's a big boy." A cough or two came from Lyle. "But," Nolan began, choosing his words carefully. "We're pests to the likes of them. We're about to cross the river 'cross hell. Smell the flames, the smoke. We'll burn for this. I want us to live another day. I don't want us to get there, to Smiths Ferry, and get kicked under the rug. I mean, I've been there and all, but–" "You outlived him," Lyle cut him off. "Alex. The cowsucker." He stopped for a moment to rub his throat. It was parched for more Marlboro. A lot of nicotine, he guessed, but all right with him. Derek, befoew at his side, went after Dennis who traveled off into the parking lot. "We're screwed shit. Get that into your thick fuckin skull." "Hey!" Carter shouted, not at the approaching cars, at them. "The four of you. Group back up, or else. I don't want you all straying off like my piss in water. Do it now." He snarled. The heels of shoes clicked together. Dennis stood motionless watching the cars. A man staring at his tombstone. Derek stood closer to Carter, and he did not stop. A hundred or so feet up the road, two gas-gobbling cars roared in hefty laughter. The thick smell fire–along with a masking stench of rotting flesh–was powerful, coming to the parking lot on a chilly breeze. Against the the sky, reddening rows of sunlight screamed at them. Red sky, Sailor's warning. "What happened here?" Wayne said through big whooping breaths. He was close to Malcolm and Derek, Eugene at his side close enough for the boy to smell his dismay. Terror and dismay, that's what it was. "What the hell happened to us?" "We were attacked," Malcolm said, almost matter-of-factly. "We were outnumbered, by underestimated odds, and people died here. That's what really happened, and I think we're done." But it wasn't done. He would have many letters to write, letters to the family of the dead. Alexander, for starters. So many, he'd lose count. Malcolm got ready for the cars, seesawing his arms over his head in big 'X's. Without speaking, he let the two cars halt at the end of the parking lot. He didn't know it, but he was staring ignorance in the face. He was under stress, though, and a lot of it. Malcolm walked, nearly sped, down to meet the cars. Gordon was right–in the filthy glow of a white haze, a police vehicle and a broken down station wagon rumbled. Up above, a lightning bolt clattered. A smog cloud hung overhead, warming Malcolm the closer he walked. Seeing it made him think of Summercreek, after all it was coming from the school. He looked closer, squinting his eyes enough to look Chinese, and could make out small petals of flame crackling down the street. The gas-gobbling police car stopped. The station wagon came to a slithering pause, kicked twice, and ceased. He wondered if his uniform was showing. There was blood on it, loads of it. He wiped at a dark red smear across his chest, embarrassed, and let it be when he came to the fact that he was drenched red. He was a dead man walking. That didn't stop him from going, "Hello!" All the while, Lyle Jackson was starting to limp forward. Derek and, slowly after he got the memo, Dennis shuffled along too. The three were watching when, simultaneously, one person left each car. Nolan was, mildy, aware of this. One moment there were huddled together, the next branching off like crooked tree branches after a storm. Oh hell, it was a storm. A storm of confusion. That was when Nolan saw what they'd seen. Hector Pacino, followed by the meek-walking Amanda and a dumb-founded Carter, walked on. They did that, and the rest walked on. Gordon couldn't, but he went as well with Joseph's hand. Oh Holy God, Nolan thought quick. He began walking, after the three others, when he saw something queer. Odd, something very odd. He stared at the cavalry. "The Guard?" There was a soldier. He was a slight few inches taller than Malcolm. Another National Guard. Gotta be kidding, he mouthed. Damned if he didn't, the soldier point at him. A witch's finger, one that spelled death. That pushed his feet. He went from being a drifting leaf to a full-blown galloping horse. He was running, fast like the wind. The cold air seared his eyes, deafened his ears, and emptied his lungs. He ran until he tripped. He hadn't seen, under the snow-blanketed tarmac, the speed bump. He landed on his side. Something cracked. His head bounced, his legs crippled, and his ribs turned to dust. A twisting purple-black light fluttered behind his left eye. Rolling around, he came to the edge of the curb, a gutter. With his knee howling in pain, he moved again. Vision was a huge blur, but he saw a shape. Then two shapes. One a figment of the mind, the other a damned man. It was Lyle, he could see him through his right eye. "Time for you to move," he said. Nolan looked at him once. The man gave a massive tug on the arm. Nolan, head wild and thoughts racing, saw one of his fingers was bent hideously to the side. The pain at his sides, the daggers that they were, numbed. Moved to his hand, and he bit his lip. Don't scream, he thought. Don't do it. But when Lyle pulled him up, and his sides burst apart with bee stings, he screamed. With a hand on his back, and another wrapped under his armpit, Lyle wrenched his friend up. It shoved the two forward, and so did the shouting. Nolan swore to God he heard an engine running, or at least try. He stared long at Lyle with awful, red eyes while blood from a nasty gash on his forehead gushed down his cheek line. The two paid off five more feet, collapsed together when Lyle fell to one knee, and then sped forward. Nolan didn't see where to, but Lyle knew. A patch of evergreen trees, the sound of water surging near a hole in the car lot. An open manhole. An engine roared behind the two. The other two, Derek and Dennis, had disappeared down it. This was it, no way around it. Nolan looked around. Dead end, except running for the evergreens. He couldn't count how close, how far they were to the hole. No time for thoughts–questions akin to who'd opened it and where they'd gone, either. At about six yards from it, something bit Nolan in the ass. Another bullet whizzed by him. He had no idea who'd shot, but he wagered Carter. Carter and his durn madness. Then he lost all regard, nothing mattered. Not his crimes, his theft, his spray-painting, and not the pain in his ass. Mattered none at all. Nolan let go of his friend and ran for his life. ---- At the edge of the hole, he stared down at a long black train. Darkness, vague chances. Nolan saw this, gripping his burning behind, and knowing no way around it. Lyle was through it, at the bottom. A grave, that's what it was, a watery grave. Chills swarmed him from nape to his heels. He began down the laddar, expecting to slip with each faltering downward. He waited for the critters of the blackout–the rattle of roaches, crackle of rat's feet, or the choked growl-hiss of a sewer gator. None came. The imagination hungered still. The sinister black bellowed to him, told him to go back. Better stay out, they'd bewared. Nolan didn't listen, reaching the bottom. He could see nothing, nothing but light eddying in from the oddly placed back manhole cover. Shivering, dampness down his back followed. These were harsh things, made worse when Nolan's hand came to him wet with blood. He couldn't see the gore until another light came on. "Get," Lyle was saying, the glow of light from his lighter astonishing. "Get, move it." A sewage pathway, more cylinder than square, laid behind him. They were in a sewage drain, cold and dead as a crypt. Nolan took in what he saw–the Double D's were together, side to side, staring at the barren walkway. They were scared, he saw the bleak despair on their faces. Maybe, he thought, they spot it on me, too. That'd be doable, if not for the scace light. Nolan did, however, hear frightening sniffling come from Dennis Johnson–who would have thought? "I wouldn't talk!" he bawled, his voice trembling with that fear. "Shut up," Lyle said, walking a few steps before stopping. The others followed close, wolves packed together. Except they weren't brave wolves, nor ones on the hunt. But scared ones, escaping through trenches of darkness. Something moved around them. A gator, Nolan thought, ready to snap. Snap, snap. Then, there was peace. Dennis kept sniffling, and Nolan felt the man's worst fears all come out at once. Lyle's Zippo shut off, and before coming back alive, he said, "Just shut up and listen to me." Boots marched over the tarmac above them. Dust collected in the air, swaying back and forth, twinkling in the flame of the Zippo. Lyle's face hung in the air, his feet stomping much faster than the others. He was their lead; their best bet. After a near minute, things got pretty gloomy. The tunnel wasn't budging. No break in the black, no luck at all. Then, Lyle showed the Zippo to the side and illuminated a passage to the right. A lamp at the close end drunkenly zapped out green light. A raspy breeze blew their way. It was ugly, dust hung in it. The more ground they covered, the louder this sound of rushing water came. The paved stone they'd walked on soon became wooden covering, not much polished and squishy enough to be of worry. It was brutally dark now. Not that they were in total black, but that the sole green light was all there was. The Zippo lighter too, but still. It scared Nolan, what laid here beneath the streets and crawled under the soles of their shoes. "Dust to dust," Nolan said, clearly in more than a whisper–and he remained in a dreamy state. He was below the lamp, watching Lyle's hand and the lighter grow smaller. "I think coming here was a mistake... we should go back." Then Dennis turned and said, "What?" "You've been nicked in the ass," Derek said, snot unspeakably running down his mouth. "Caint go back." "I'm still alive, aren't I?" "Oh, you wanna play with me?" He came over, sudden out of the greasy air, and picked his arm. And pulled him forward. Nolan let out a whine when his legs hopped over his feet. Derek, letting go, said, "Git." A commotion was hearable above them. Nolan swore he caught the clatter of the manhole being moved, and that's when he hauled ass. That sobered him up, and holding his war wound, he ran past Doughboy. That sobered Derek up, and the other two. They went running, scrambling like mice over a balcony to get from edge-to-edge. The floor felt like it disappeared under them. It was flooded with humongous puddles, none they'd seen of course, but felt. Heard them. And like the crackles of rat's feet, they splashed across them. The groundwater grew thicker, muddier. The path turned to a left shoulder and Lyle Jackson cursed a mighty good one when he went tumbling into three feet's of sewer water. The others struggled to a hard stop behind him. Chatter broke out behind them. Nolan, rushing with one leg awkwardly in front of the other, jumped and landed in the water. This was an abyss of black. The Zippo lighter shined across the water that closed around them. The sewage drain is a long trench full with water, black as oil. Nothing moved here, too. It was a haunting feeling, one where a sensation of the unknown rippled over and under the water. What mattered as well was the stench. Oh, the stench! Sour and eye-swelling! Soon, all four were in the crotch-deep water. Thrashing, moving like a frenzy. The voices behind them were getting louder, and louder. At one point, when Nolan caught up to Jackson, he couldn't tell whether the shouting came from behind his back or was Dennis's wailing. Thunder banged overhead. The Devil was a waiting customer. Confusing, he thought, and it'll get worse from here. It would. How bad? He had no clue. Issues Category:Step by Step Category:Category:Step by Step Issues Category:Issues